


Tree

by ca_te



Category: Death Note
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ca_te/pseuds/ca_te
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written on 11 September 2009. <br/>Warnings: Spoilers for characters' real names</p>
    </blockquote>





	Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IceQueenRex](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=IceQueenRex).



> Written on 11 September 2009.   
> Warnings: Spoilers for characters' real names

There was a tree in the courtyard. But well there's a tree in almost every courtyard. Not that they had seen many others courtyards in their life, but they knew it was like that. In the end knowing was what they were supposed to do.

Trees in a school courtyard are supposed to have their cortex full of names and hearts and bad words. But that tree was different.

Children at Wammy's didn't know the meaning of writing on a cortex. It wasn't of any use, after all.

 

Summer was the season Mello hated the most, because it was the most far from what it had been being at home. Most of the memories Mello had of his childhood involved snow, mountains of snow, and cold winds and his mother's warm hands.

Mello was lying on his bed, looking at the ceiling, small droplets of sweat rolling at the base of his neck.

-What the hell! It's not supposed to be so freaking hot in Whinchester!

Matt kept his eyes on the console, his goggles over his eyes. The sunlight was entering the room like a blade, vivisecting their skin along with the forniture.

The sounds of the video game mixed up with the verses of the bird and of the cicadas.

Mello counted the beads of his rosary, warm on his skin.

-Say what you want I'll drag you out when this fucking sun will set!

Matt shrug. The open air didn't seem something to look forward to, but he had learnt that fighting against the blond was just a waste of energy. And energy could be used to play video games, or to touch himself thinking about Linda's blond pony tail.

But he knows there are different kind of blond, and that Mello's is unique. Shining like a falling star in a sea of people without a face.

In the little town where Matt lived when he still had a family, when he still was a normal kid, there was a lighthouse. Matt could see it from the window of his room. He could see it sending out its flashing light into the night. He had thought about that lighthouse the first time he saw Mello in the crowded common room. He was eating his chocolate. The other children were playing around.

Matt wondered if Mello's parents had had blond hair too.

He heard the sound of the bed's springs creaking as Mello sat on the bed, his legs crossed.

-I'm bored, you know?

-And what I'm supposed to do with that, Mel?

Their voices were tired in the heavy air.

-Like I know, idiot! Just do something!

Matt wondered if Mello was like that when he was a kid. Sometimes Matt also had wondered which could be Mello's true name.

It wasn't something of none importance for children at Wammy's. For all the children in the world their own name was just a name. For children at Wammy's their real name was what they couldn't be any more.

So Matt had never asked, and neither had Mello.

-Can I ask you something?

It was not like Matt to be so serious while talking. Mello furrowed his blond brows.

-What?

Matt felt Mello's breath at the back of his neck as Mello lied down on the bed. Red hair rised.

-Did your parents have the same blond hair as you?

It was hot in the room, the light still falling inside. Matt closed his eyes, ready to be hit, his hands clutching the console.

Mello's voice came out soft, like a candy melted by the heat.

-Yes. Both of them.

Matt looked at the empty screen of the console. He imagined a women, holding a little blond kid.

He bit his lower lip.

-Sorry for asking, Mel.

Mello looked at Matt's neck, under the soft mass of red hair. He sighed and let his fingers caress uncertainly Matt's skin.

-Don't be sorry, you idiot!

Matt chuckled. A small drop of sweat rolling down his eyebrow.

Mello pulled at a strand of fire-like hair.

-I bet it was your father to have this kind of hair.

Matt felt his own eyes getting wider. He looked straight in front of his, the light stamping squares on the wall. He nodded. Mello felt the muscles of Matt's neck tensing up under his fingers.

The beads of the rosary were still warm on Mello's skin, maybe a little more heavy.

Mello remained silent, looking at Matt's hair.

-Let's go out, Mel.

Mello's fingers slipped on Matt's back as the red-head got up. They descended a strip after the other.

What Matt could feel were only Mello's fingers and the cicadas.

He didn't care about the vivisecting light anymore.

 

The sun was heavy on their heads, and the tree was motionless under it. It seemed a piece of coal standing in a corner of the courtyard like a punished student.

Matt remembered that once Mello had been punished for having beaten up a boy. Mello had broken his lower lip. Matt remembered the red on the blond's knuckles.

He had thought it was as if Mello had flowers painted over his hands.

Matt screened his eyes with a hand. Mello didn't try to make him lower it.

The dry grass cracked under their sneakers. Mello had never liked to wear shoes. He was like Near. Trying to be like L.

-Sit down.

Matt was long used to the commanding tone Mello used most of the time. He sat, his back against the tree. He could count the sweat drops along his spine. When he was little he used to be out in the sun all the time, playing at the beach, his mother watching over him. But it had been long before, and his skin was not used any more. Mello moved and stood between the sun and Matt.

He didn't say anything, but Matt knew the blond was doing it to repair his eyes. Mello knew the goggles weren't enough with such a strong light.

Also questions were quite easy. And they both knew that normal kids wouldn't have hesitated to talk and talk about their families or their names.

Matt looked at the black silhouette Mello was against the sun.

the blond looked straight into the sun, till his eyes started to hurt and there were only white and pink spots all around.

-My name is Mihael.

It was a whisper.

-My name is Mail.

It was like the light sound of the grass under Mello's body as he sat down at Matt's side.

And although there wasn't a light house or there wasn't the snow it was safe.

 

And they both knew that saying their own names like that was like saying "I love you".


End file.
